Monday, June 4, 2007

On Saturday morning I went to my local Starbucks. It was a chilly day, my just washed hair was wet, I had on a heavy sweatshirt under a down vest, and I was sporting sunglasses to cover my tired eyes. I felt gross.

I used to drink Starbuck’s coffee, but stopped after not being able to put up with or get used to its heavy taste. Hell, they have heavy duty breath mints of all kinds at the register to give you a clue.

That was years ago, but I did not mind their tea, JOY, to be exact.

I get on line and get towards the front.

I almost died.

I approached the damned counter, because at Starbucks they HAVE to get your order and payment despite you can’t even get up to the counter to pay.

At the same time I was giving my tea order, rifling through my pocketbook for money and wanting to SCREAM because I could not use the counter to rifle, out of the corner of my eye I saw Quiet Man. He was all smiles.

He came over to me and grabbed my arm and was so talkative.

“HI MUSE! So good to see you!” he said so enthusiastically while hanging on my sweat-shirted arm.

Of course everyone on line was paying attention to this spectacle.

I was SO ANNOYED that he blew me off and then acts like he did nothing. Did he have to say hello so happily? Also, I saw a dark haired older woman next to him which angered me. I was also so uncomfortable looking the way I did.

“Hi, Quiet Man,” I forced mumbled while I got out my money and glanced at him quickly. I did not turn to look at him again, and stared at the assorted teas on Starbuck’s back wall. Quiet Man was waiting for his coffee to be made. I got my tea first and turned to walk to the milk and napkin counter by going against the line.

I was looking for the milk for the tea and I see the dark haired woman that was with Quiet Man come over to the counter I was at; I was plotting in my mind the verbal assault I had ready if she bothered me at all.

I felt stupid because she then left Starbucks and got into her husband’s car. My imagination can be very active.

Quite Man comes over while I was re-capping my tea. I can’t remember what he was saying, except that for one second I felt much better he was alone. I never saw him in this Starbuck’s before I, analyzed.

Outside on the sidewalk, he insisted on talking to me. He invited me to go into Fred’s nearby office to talk with him. He repeated this two to three times. At first it was animated like an exited child. With each, "NO, I can’t, I am going into the next city, I have to meet someone," his enthusiasm waned.

“NO, I am meeting someone, “ I repeated.

[I was not meeting anyone.]

He then stood up straighter. He was looking down at me. He became cooler towards me and accepted that I was not going to drink my JOY tea while he drank his muddy coffee in Fred’s office.

HHMMPH!!!!!!!!!!!!! That is how I felt.

Now the stories I have previously related about Quiet Man and I were over the course of about month and a half.

The next time I saw him was in a parking lot. I was chatting on my cell phone with a friend before going into Blockbuster. It was anywhere between 7:30 and 8:00 pm.

I saw him walking to his car. My friend was chiding me because she thought I was very harsh with him. She insisted I apologize to him and see what he does to soften my nastiness. Nastiness? I did not think I was nasty. Did she forget he never did what he said he would do?

She pressed me and pressed me to just do it.

So I did it.

I yelled out to him and he held up his hand over his head. I was embarrassed.

“OMG, you MADE me do it and now he is not coming over,“ I yelled into the phone to my friend.

“Well, at least you know,” she said matter of factly.

“OH NO, he is coming over!” I told her.

As his green Jaguar SJX came over to me, he pulled up next to my driver’s window. He was somewhat smiling and opened his window.

I had my window down already, held up my finger to Quiet Man to wait a second, and told my friend I would call her later.

“You better!” she said.

“Hi, Quiet Man,” I began.

I then just blurted it out: “ I am sorry for not being so nice to you the other day.”

He threw up his hand with a sad kind of smile and said, “It’s OK, Muse.”

[PLEASE. I am going to kill my friend for convincing me to do something so stupid.]

He told me he was busy and had to go and turn on the heat in his garage where he kept his antique cars.

Why? Because its going to be below 40 degrees tonight.

And that matters because…?

“It’s not good for the cars,” he explained.

“Oh,” I said acting as if it was a missing piece of vital information.

So I proceeded to chat my head off with him; I was talking about New Year's and the restaurant they were going to have the party at for our group. On its website, it looked gorgeous, like something out of NYC. I could not believe they had a place like that were we lived.

On and on I went.

“Let’s go,” he interrupted me.

“What?” I said as I turned to look at him, “What did you say?”

“Let’s go,” he repeated, “to the restaurant.”

“Well, you have to call me first,” I told him somewhat demurely.

“I will call you,” he assured.

I was not going to fall for that one again. We said our good byes. And, of course, he did not call.